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Social Security: Americans Agree VIDEO

Social Security: Just the Facts Video

COVERED: a week-by-week look at the political and legislative developments that led to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid 50 years ago. Bob Rosenblatt, Academy senior fellow and former Los Angeles Times Washington correspondent will report on the people and the maneuvers that led to this major expansion of social insurance.

Discuss: Share in Our Policy Ideas

Monday, December 10, 2018

Emerging and Uninsured Risks Facing Younger Generations

Kathryn Edwards, Associate Economist, RAND Corporation

Kathryn Edwards is an Associate Economist at the RAND Corporation. She is a member of the 2019 Conference Planning Committee. After working as a research assistant at the Economic Policy Institute from 2008-2011, Ms. Edwards attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she received her Ph.D. in Economics. Along the way, Edwards was a graduate fellow of the Institute for Research on Poverty and a summer fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The Academy’s 2019 Conference will highlight emerging risks facing younger generations – and indeed, affecting all generations – in the 21st century, including automation, globalization, changing work arrangements, and other disruptions. As a member of the conference planning committee, I have primary responsibility for organizing and moderating the first session on “Emerging and Uninsured Risks Facing Younger Generations.”

My goal is to help us gain a better understanding of the kinds of risks younger Americans are exposed to, some of which are insured by social insurance programs, and some are not. This session will give an overview of a set of uninsured risks: rising home prices and rental costs in most American cities; the size and burden of student loans; dual caregiving needs of children as well as aging parents; and unemployment, which is addressed by existing unemployment insurance (UI) programs, but over the decades has become increasingly inadequate.

To this end, I’ve enlisted several colleagues and experts on these issues to serve as panelists:

Colleen Campbell, Associate Director for Postsecondary Education at the Center for American Progress (CAP) will be the panel’s expert on student debt. Prior to working at CAP, Campbell was a senior policy analyst at the Association of Community College Trustees, and a research analyst at the Institute for Higher education policy. Campbell also focuses specifically on providing accessible, affordable postsecondary options for underrepresented communities and adult learners. Campbell’s most recent work, published just last week, focuses on the tedious process of filing FAFSA forms each year, and how it serves as a barrier particularly for low-income students. Her paper explores whether a one-time FAFSA (as opposed to having to file a new one each year) would be a viable solution to this issue, while discussing implementation methods capable of targeting specific groups of students. For more information, find Campbell’s work here.

Laurie Goodman, Co-Director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, brings years of experience in both the public and private sectors to the panel, where she discuss affordable housing issues. Goodman began her career as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before heading to UBS, where she was head of global fixed income research and manager of US securitized products research from 1993 to 2008. Finally, during the peak of the housing crisis, Goodman was a senior managing director at Amherst Securities Group LP, where her strategy effort was renowned for its analysis of housing policy issues. Beyond her work experience, Goodman has published over 200 journal articles and coauthored and coedited five books. Among Goodman’s latest work is an analysis of the impacts of parental home ownership and wealth levels on the housing outcomes of young adults. The study had some remarkable findings, including the difference in parental homeownership between black and white young adults explaining between 12 to 13 percent of the homeownership gap between black and white young adults. For the full report and more of Goodman’s work, click here.

Yulya Truskinovsky, Assistant Professor of Economics at Wayne State University, will be the panel’s expert on caregiving. Professor Truskinovsky earned a Ph.D. from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, and recently completed a Sloan Fellowship at Harvard University. In her work Truskinovsky focuses on two distinct questions: How does informal care respond to price and other market-based incentives; and what is the causal effect of caregiving on the employment outcomes of older Americans in the context of a rapidly aging population? Some of Truskinovsky’s recent work includes a working paper titled, “The Unintended Consequences of Informal Childcare Subsidies for Older Women’s Retirement Security”. She will help us better understand the growing need for young adults to help take care of their aging parents.

I’m very much looking forward to this discussion on January 31, and I hope you’ll join us.